Monstress Volume 1: Awakening (vuoden 2016 painos)

Excellent.
6 stars from me. The art is beautiful, the story is excellent, character, words, world building, all brilliant. ( )

Plot: It’s really hard to do justice to the story of Monstress without sounding cliché. The back cover describes it as: “Maika is both hunter and hunted, searching for answers about her mysterious past as those who seek to use her remain just one step behind… and all the while, the monster within begins to awaken…” That’s technically correct, but it makes it sound a lot more formulaic than it actually is. There’s a ton of world-building done in the best way possible - alluded to and left to the reader to piece together, not dumped in massive chunks of exposition. (Lecture excerpts from the feline Professor Tam Tam notwithstanding).

Aesthetic: The art style is really fascinating for managing to pull so many influences together and still make it look like a coherent universe. You’ve got a whole range of Islamic art styles, some ancient Egyptian/Babylonian, and a splash of Imperial German that reminds me either of a saner version of the Imperium of Man or the snippets of His Dark Materials that I actually remember. (I really need to re-read that series if I’m going to keep quoting it as a reference). The Temple of the Ancients looks Khmer-inspired, and the Old Gods have the best elements of Lovecraft in them. Damn cool, and I have no doubt I missed most of everything on the first pass.

Magic: When it comes to serious fantasy, this is exactly the kind of magic I enjoy. Weird, unpredictable, messily-understood, unscientific. How exactly magic works is, for me, always best left as something of a mystery, and Monstress does a great job of this. Best exemplified in the Cthulic(?) abomination that cohabits the body of protagonist Maika Halfwolf - that is just otherworldly. Gods, ancient beings, and magical forces are given the reverence they deserve. J'approve.

Characters: I certainly didn’t dislike anyone, though so far much of the characterization hasn’t been fleshed out yet. So much - schemes, motives, backstories, etc. - is being kept secret (as of Volume 1, to be fair), that many characters remain enigmas, or near-enough. Some of the minor antagonists from the earlier parts of the Volume definitely interested me the most. Maika’s relationship with the Cthulic deity in her arm/soul is easily the most enjoyable relationship, if only because of how complex and testy it occasionally gets.

Misc: The almost allusions to real-life history is really interesting, a kind of mental priming. I haven’t researched the book properly, so as not to spoil anything, but the use of names like Constantine, Orleen, Galilea, Marium… that most of these not-quite-anchors are named after fairly prominent things in the history of Christendom can’t really be a coincidence, can they? Two other Old Testament references that jumped out at me were “Eden” (self-explanatory) and Lilium. I’m taking a shot in the dark that Lilium is a reference to Lilith, a fascinating figure, though that might be my inner Evangelion geek speaking.

My biggest quibble is that I think the overall tone was a bit depressing for me, but that’s really not a flaw so much as it is just being grimmer than my usual fare. Definitely hope to work through the remainder of the series, regardless. ( )

Read Harder 2018: A comic written or drawn by a person of color

This graphic novel collection from the first six of a comic book series has beautiful illustrations. The story line was hard for me to follow as I couldn't distinguish between the different "races" involved, but it was engaging. ( )

While gorgeous, I was just too confused and it was a little too angry and complex for me. Maybe I'll return to this at another time when my focus is better.